


Digging Deeper

by MsBee



Series: Lore and Ishara - Eclectic Tales [6]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Robot/Human Relationships, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22478773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBee/pseuds/MsBee
Summary: The storm on the planet’s surface had been fierce and sudden, rain lashing down with an intensity that would have made any sensible creatures dash for cover. It was typical of Lore that he continued digging, even as she yelled for him to stop and beam back to the ship. Ishara had a brief glimpse of his lean figure, silhouetted by lightning in the pit he had made, shovel still moving frantically, before she energised the transporter and left him to it.If the idiot wanted to drown himself in the pursuit of buried treasure then, fine, that was his prerogative.
Relationships: Lore/Ishara Yar
Series: Lore and Ishara - Eclectic Tales [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621099
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	Digging Deeper

Ishara stood still, her uneven breathing loud in the quiet cargo bay of the Pakled ship. Drips of water fell from her battered leather jacket, making puddles on the transporter pad. She knew she ought to get dry before she began to shiver but she didn’t move. She was gripped by the strong conviction that she had never been so wet or exhausted in her entire life.

The storm on the planet’s surface had been fierce and sudden, rain lashing down with an intensity that would have made any sensible creatures dash for cover. It was typical of Lore that he continued digging, even as she yelled for him to stop and beam back to the ship. She had a brief glimpse of his lean figure, silhouetted by lightning in the pit he had made, shovel still moving frantically, before she energised the transporter and left him to it.

If the idiot wanted to drown himself in the pursuit of buried treasure then, _fine_ , that was his prerogative.

She forced her sluggish legs two steps forward and sat heavily on a metal crate, unable to summon any reserves of energy to deal with her soaked hair and clothes. All the muscles in her back, from her shoulders down to her calves, were aching. Her hands felt stiff. She flexed them experimentally, wondering if blisters were already forming under the skin.

The high pitched whine of the transporter told her that she had company and Ishara glanced sideways as Lore materialised. If she hadn’t been so tired she might have laughed at the picture he made - his lower half caked in mud, his top half sopping wet, shirt plastered to his skin. His hair, normally so neatly combed back, was wild and bedraggled, falling over his eyes in dark streaks.

In his hands he carried a shovel, a lantern and an empty sack. Ishara felt a surge of relief - he’d brought the gear back, hopefully that meant he had no intention of returning to the planet again.

She half expected him to yell at her for leaving but Lore was silent, a distracted furrow lodged between his brows. It wasn’t like him to be so passive, although - now she thought about it - he hadn’t spoken a word for ages.

The moment stretched, as if the android was going through the same acclimatising process she had. Finally Lore gathered himself enough to move. He set down the equipment, raked his hair back, removed his filthy boots and disappeared along the corridor.

Water began to run in the shower, then Ishara heard her name called in a sharp bark. With an effort she stumbled slowly to find the android in the washroom. He was naked already, his muddy gear in a neat pile against the wall. She blinked uncomprehendingly when he indicated that she should take her clothes off. He rolled his eyes, stepping close to push her jacket off her shoulders and start stripping her out of her clinging waterlogged garments.

Ishara let him take charge, shivering at the warmth of the water as he manoeuvred her under the jets. Dirt ran in brown streams as water sluiced over their bodies - for all the times the shower had been a backdrop for an erotic encounter, _this_ definitely wasn’t one of them. Lore washed her hair and skin, his touch briskly efficient, before pushing her gently back out of the stall so he could continue with his own clean up.

Ishara wrapped herself in her fluffy white bathrobe - a souvenir from an unsuccessful heist at an interplanetary spa - then headed into the lounge, sat on one of the sofas, and yawned as widely as her jaw would allow. The heat of the shower had amplified her tiredness and she felt her head droop. In the background she could hear Lore grumbling at the filthy clothes while he tossed them into the laundry sanitiser, yet the noises seemed dim as sleep began to beckon.

Some minutes later the now dressed android nudged her awake to thrust a steaming bowl of food and a fork into her hands. She gaped stupidly at him but Lore didn’t wait to be acknowledged. He flopped down onto the second sofa opposite her, leaning back against the cushions with one arm over his eyes.

He looked a picture of weariness - which was ludicrous given his synthetic nature. Maybe it was possible that the frustration of the day had taken it’s toll mentally, even though he couldn’t feel physical exhaustion.

Ishara ate the dish in silence. Normally she might have quizzed the android about the contents, checked that he wasn’t feeding her anything nutritionally dodgy, but the stew-like mixture was tasty enough that she couldn’t be bothered. She chewed mechanically and let herself drift, her thoughts travelling back to the beginning of the affair.

From the start Lore’s enthusiasm for the whole treasure hunting idea had been inexplicable, if not downright _crazy_.

After all, who believed that they could be offered a map by a stranger in a bar that would truly lead to a fortune? Surely not a super intelligent android who often scoffed about how gullible organic beings were. Yet there he was, buying ‘One-Eyed Gil’ - the local crackpot - _another_ drink, resolutely ignoring Ishara’s eye rolls and muttered disbelief to listen intently to tales of ancient civilisations overflowing with treasure.

At least Lore hadn’t paid for the map in the end - although perhaps it would have worked out cheaper if he had, considering the amount of liquor the weird old guy consumed. Ishara could hold her own in the alcohol department, but the bar had been starting to spin and she’d had to stop the android refilling her glass long before Gil slurred into silence and finally passed out. The old man snored loudly, face down on a table, totally oblivious to Lore rifling through his pockets to find a battered data rod.

Ishara vaguely remembered the android’s triumphant smirk as he transferred the contents to his own device, then his vicelike grip on her arm as she staggered in the fresh air outside the bar, but after that her next clear recollection was waking in her bunk, hungover, to find the ship en route to an obscure part of the Zeintas star system.

Lore had been secretive about the map even then, flicking off the holo display he had been viewing immediately when she entered the lounge, preventing any discussion of it with a few witticisms about her organic inability to process alcohol.

His reticence had been irritating, particularly as she was sure he was doing it to make a point - _his ship, his map_.

Lore was always unpredictable, but even in a volatile personality like his there were patterns. In the time they’d been together she had come to know what was likely to amuse him, to provoke an eye roll, or to tip him over into outright fury... but over the last month the android’s behaviour had been... unusual.

Incredible as it seemed, _Lore had been making efforts to be pleasant to her_. They were sporadic efforts - non-sexual affectionate gestures, half-assed attempts at deep communication, grim restraint instead of outright sarcasm - but it could not be denied that he was trying.

She had begun to sense that he wanted to say something... nice? Something complimentary? Perhaps even something romantic? A declaration of tender feelings maybe?

The prospect was thrilling, terrifying and ultimately frustrating because Lore always bottled out at the last moment. He would break off mid-sentence, change the subject, then revert back to square one, taking pains to let her know that while she might be useful occasionally she was just an onboard commodity that he enjoyed when he felt like it.

They both knew he was running scared, but it stung to be dismissed that way. It wasn’t as though she had begged him to be nice, or asked him to tell her how he felt about her - he was inflicting the whole emotional see-saw on himself and destroying their fragile status quo in the process.

Outwardly Ishara met his mood swings with as little reaction as possible - a raised brow, an eye roll, or a ‘whatever’ shrug - which she knew infuriated the attention seeking android. She had the sneaking suspicion that ignoring your partner wasn’t a mature way to handle conflict in a relationship, but at least it gave her a small sense of control over the whole debacle.

So, if Lore thought he was showing her who was boss by keeping secrets then _fine_ , let him think what he liked. She shot him a pitying glance as she crossed to the replicator for some hot, strong coffee then pointedly blanked him as she returned to her bunk.

For all her bravado Ishara _was_ mildly interested in the map - at least enough to check the data saved in the holo table memory as soon as she was alone in the lounge. There it was - two files. Lore might have removed his PADD but he hadn’t thought to erase the table’s auto-backup. She grinned to herself as she pulled up the first file and the stellar cartography program opened, filling the air above the table with a three dimensional star chart.

One Eyed Gil’s map was sketchy at best. She could see that Lore had overlaid it against a current schematic of the Zeintas system, correlating planets and moons to find a - somewhat imprecise - match between the two holo documents. Gil had placed a big red ‘X’ over a small dot at the edge of the galaxy which Lore had married up with an existing planet.

‘ _Oh, come on, Lore - X marks the spot?_ ’

A movement in the corridor told her that the android was about to return from the cockpit. Hurriedly she flicked the table display to a vid channel and schooled her face to a bland smile which made his eyes narrow in suspicion as soon as he saw her.

The data was gone the next time she looked. It didn’t matter though, she had enough information to do her own research. ‘X’ was Ziber II, an M class world covered in thick jungle. There were large metal ore deposits in the planet’s surface, making it impossible to use the ship’s sensors to find anything of similar material buried beneath.

Ishara wondered how Lore intended to find his ‘treasure’ - a question that was answered the next morning when he began to assemble his gear - a shovel and a lantern. The unseen second file of One Eyed Gil’s map must have provided more on-planet detail if he thought he could find anything with such primitive methods.

She suspected that he would beam down without a word, but when he was ready the android turned to her and smugly asked if she fancied ‘a day out’. His self satisfied preening riled her - he just wanted an audience for how brilliant he was about to be. She was half tempted to refuse, except she didn’t have anything better to do, apart from sit alone waiting for him to come back, so she shrugged an ungracious assent.

The morning started off warm and clear. Ishara basked on a rock in the sunshine - ‘like a huge lizard,’ Lore teased, breaking off from his digging to regard her with a smirk. She stuck her tongue out in response but smiled too. It seemed that the tension between them had abated now that they were off the ship and there was a companionable silence as he worked.

As the afternoon wore on it brought a change. Dark clouds started as shadows on the horizon and began moving ominously toward them. The atmosphere grew heavy, creating an oppressive stickiness that made Ishara sweat.

Lore had been digging for hours. He was currently shoulder deep in his third hole, having found nothing except worthless shards of pottery and lines of bricks indicating a village had once stood here. His bright mood had evaporated, replaced by a hard fury that seemed to provide him impetus to keep labouring.

Ishara’s amusement at the android’s failure peaked after the second hole failed to yield results. She mentioned returning to the ship several times but Lore snapped at her to stay put. She obeyed grudgingly, her conversation growing steadily more sarcastic as it became apparent that they were wasting their time - was he sure this was the right place? Or even the right planet? Did he want _her_ to take a look at the map?

Her last barb seemed to break through his self control and she had to jump back as he chucked the shovel at her feet. Gold eyes blazing in his dirty face he snarled at her to stop her incessant bitching and _find_ something if she was so clever.

Furious at his tone, Ishara held her hand out for his PADD. For a long moment she thought he would still refuse to show her the map, but finally he gave in and slapped the device into her hand.

As she had guessed the second file of the map located the treasure on the planet’s surface. Hand drawn symbols - runes that comprised the ancient Zeintan language - littered the screen, coupled with a crude sketch of a landscape. Some of the symbols had been translated in a neat hand she recognised as the android’s, labelling the map features as ‘river’, ‘forest’ and ‘cliffs’. The scene was marked centrally with an ‘X’.

Ishara stared at the readout. Was this all he had? She opened her mouth to tell him that it was impossible to hope to pinpoint ‘X’ with such nebulous data, then caught the murderous glint in his eyes and fell silent. Frowning she subsided back onto her rock to see if she could make sense of the scribbled mess.

In all honesty she _could_ see why Lore had chosen to dig at this site. Taken at face value the geographical components of the drawing were a good match for the symbols he had translated - a river, a mountainous cliff, a forest... but if this was the correct location surely the android would have found something by now, and what about the other symbols that horizontally bordered the page? He had ignored them but they must indicate something...

Ishara closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, trying to recall what extra information One Eyed Gil had provided in the bar. The map was at least fifty years old, Gil said he had copied it from an ancient marker stone he found as a young assistant on an archaeological expedition. Was it possible that the line of the trees had shifted forward with time, the forest encroaching on the riverbank? If so, that could mean that the android was digging too close to the cliff... but somehow it seemed unlikely that the solution could be so simple...

She glanced hesitantly at her partner, ready to share her thoughts.

He smirked, raising one eyebrow and Ishara realised that he expected her to fail.

In that moment she made a decision - it was unlikely but what the hell? If she succeeded in finding One Eyed Gil’s treasure where Lore had failed it would be a victory for the ages.

She stood. The android held his hand out for the shovel, but she brushed past him disdainfully, located the least unlikely spot and began to dig.

It wasn’t long before her back ached and her hands felt sore. She liked to think that she was fit yet the work was more physically demanding than she had expected - perhaps because Lore made it look so easy. Pride wouldn’t let her stop but her progress slowed to a crawl and she knew her face was flushed, sweaty in the humid atmosphere.

The android was clearly waiting for her to give up. He stood with folded arms until she was knee deep in the earth, panting from the exertion, still intending to continue, before he suddenly swore in exasperation and wrestled the shovel back from her. By this point the sky had grown dark and they stood glaring at one another in the gloom until a rumble of thunder broke the tension.

Lore activated the lantern and thrust it into her hand. Snapping at her to keep the beam steady, he began to dig more deeply in the spot she had chosen.

As she stood at the side of the rapidly growing pit, holding the light and watching him, Ishara briefly wondered if he was playing out some kind of fantasy from a childhood he’d never had - weren’t all kids excited by the idea of maps and buried treasure? - or if he really expected to find something.

The first heavy drop of rain fell on her outstretched arm with a smacking plop.

Ishara opened her eyes, returning to the present, and found Lore staring at her - although, to be accurate, he seemed to be looking _through_ her, and she guessed that he was internally re-examining the map to see where he had gone wrong.

Fearing he could gain some new insight that would involve him dragging her back to the planet’s surface she stood as quickly as her stiffening muscles would allow and began to shuffle toward her cabin.

The sheets were cold as Ishara climbed into bed and she regretted giving in to the lazy impulse to throw off her bathrobe without finding something to replace it. Shivering, she snuggled down. The shiny thermal blanket would warm up soon enough from her body heat but until then she would have to put up with the chill - there was no way she was getting off the bunk again.

The door to the corridor opened suddenly. Ishara heard the android enter quietly then it closed. Before she could react she felt the mattress dip as he climbed into bed beside her.

If he was hoping for sex he was really barking up the wrong tree, she thought, tensing irritably when he draped his arm over her.

Lore obviously caught her mood because she heard him murmur, “Pfffft,” then felt his weight settle along the length of her back. He was still dressed and the soft fabric of his clothes felt warm against her skin.

She was exhausted, but somehow the novelty of having him there beside her without either of them instigating any sexual contact was enough to keep her from dropping off to sleep. What was he doing? He never slept, so far as she knew, and he obviously didn’t have anything to say, because he was silent.

She had the feeling that if she rolled over to face him and put the light on she’d see that perplexed, distracted expression again.

Why was it so hard for him to admit the obvious - that the map and ‘One Eyed Gil’ were totally bogus? It wasn’t as if the map had cost him more than a few drinks and some wasted time. It could hardly be a surprise if the old man was a con artist - she had told the android so, repeatedly and at great length...

Ishara bit her lip, suddenly uncomfortable as a new thought occurred to her. She had assumed that he wouldn’t discuss the map with her just to put her in her place, to obnoxiously signal that her input wasn’t important to him - that _she_ wasn’t important to him - what if she was wrong? What if he had kept it to himself to avoid her acid negativity on the subject?

The whole treasure hunting scenario had been ridiculous from start to finish, but the android had been excited by it. Maybe hidden archaeological relics were Lore’s _thing_ , maybe she should have been supportive rather than shooting him down every step of the way.

She wasn’t even sure that he deserved it. Lore was an ass most of the time... but not today. In the last hour he’d cleaned her up, got her dinner, then followed her to bed as if he just wanted to be with her whether there was sex on offer or not.

If she was honest she could admit that his recent hot/cold behaviour swings had hurt, to the point where she’d retaliated - meeting his good _and_ bad moods with equal disdain so that however he chose to act he couldn’t win. He had definitely earned her anger for the cruel way he’d dismissed her... but somehow trying to pay him back wasn’t helping either of them.

Emotional openness had never been something she’d desired in the past, but if she wanted anything resembling a mature relationship - and if she wanted it with Lore - she knew that she needed to abandon her resentment and find a better way to communicate.

Lore was trying, that was what mattered.

Now she needed to dig deeper too.

Insight reached, Ishara forced herself to relax and patted the android’s arm in a consoling fashion. “Perhaps you’ll find something tomorrow,” she whispered softly, trying to sound as if she thought it was a genuine possibility.

Her gentleness seemed to break his introspection. He exhaled, letting out a groan of pure frustration, and rested his forehead against her shoulder. “I don’t _like_ digging.”

“Well... no-one does. That’s why burying things is a good way to hide them.”

“Pfffft. So much dirt.”

Ishara was no empath, but the overwhelming sense of his disappointment suddenly reached her. Was that really what this was? A childlike treasure hunt for a man who had never been a boy? It was almost unbelievable yet it fit - for all his bitterness and bad temper Lore was just a big kid at times.

If she’d known he wanted to find treasure so badly, she would have buried something herself so he could dig it up.

“We should just pretend this whole day never happened,” she told him drowsily, snuggling into his embrace.

The android gave a small huff of rueful laughter. “Maybe.” There was a long pause and then he added softly against her ear, “You and your dumb schemes.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was just meant to be a short fic about things that don’t work out, about being cold, wet and too tired to talk, about some days not being worth remembering - but somehow an emotional subplot worked it’s way in, hence the title.
> 
> I guess it does follow on from my other story ‘Three Hundred and Eighty Heroes’ which ends with Lore wondering about sharing his growing feelings with Ishara.  
> Of course, Lore being Lore, that wouldn’t be a straightforward thing to do. He would definitely make things worse before he managed to make them better.
> 
> (Also this post on Tumblr made me laugh and seems kind of relevant.)  
> https://kaelio.tumblr.com/post/183156399941/every-single-one-of-lores-schemes


End file.
